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The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films: Part One

Peter Hoskin and Matthew d’Ancona count down the first 25 of The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films The studio logo fades. The opening credits roll. And so we come to the main feature: The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films — a selection of the very best that cinema has to offer, and all in glorious Technicolor. This

Where is the Arthur Seldon for our own era?

Colin Robinson, biographer of the sage who so influenced Thatcherism, says that Seldon has no counterpart now — the Tory party is no longer receptive to such challenging ideas Arthur Seldon deserves greater recognition as a central figure in a small group of economic policymakers which started the transformation of the British economy in the

The secret Iraq deal that bought Mandelson’s loyalty to Brown

John Kampfner unveils the ignominious truth about Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry and reveals Peter Mandelson’s demand, when Brown’s future hung in the balance in early June, that the hearings be held in private. Even now Mandelson’s priority is to protect Brand Blair The charge sheet is long and yet the dock is empty. One

A Yorkshire genius in love with his iPhone

‘Who would ever have thought,’ asked David Hockney, ‘that drawing would return via the telephone?’ It is a typical Hockney point, wry, unexpected, connecting high-tech with low — and in this case undeniably true. Lately he has taken to drawing on his iPhone, with results that are luminous, and wonderfully free in draughtsmanship. ‘I must

No more consensus: this time there is a choice

The next election will present voters with two distinct futures, says Irwin Stelzer: Labour’s rising taxes and love of the EU, or the Tories’ spending cuts and plans for the ‘broken society’ Where is the clear blue water? MPs in both the Labour and the Tory parties have engaged in behaviour that is illegal, or

Sarkozy’s burqa ban panders to racism, not feminism

Rod Liddle says that the French President may be right about Islam’s ideological content but that his proposal is shockingly illiberal and wrong-headed I’ve been in the Middle East for the last three or four days — just trying to help out, you know, anything one can do — and staying in a hotel which